The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

and now with this seemingly endless journey, the boy, for he was barely seventeen, sank suddenly to the ground with exhaustion, striking the flags with a thud, his boots dragging harshly on the stone. The noise brought Flay to a sudden halt and he turned himself slowly about, drawing his shoulders up to his ears as he did so. ‘What’s that?’ he croaked, peering into the darkness behind him.

There was no answer. Mr Flay began to retrace his steps, his head forward, his eyes peering. As he proceeded he came into the light of one of the candles in the wall. He approached it, still keeping his small eyes directed into the darkness beyond, and wrenched the candle, with a great substratum of ancient tallow with it, from the wall and with this to help him he soon came across the boy in the centre of the corridor several yards further on.

He bent forward and lowered the great lump of lambent wax within a few inches of Steerpike, who had fallen face downwards and peered at the immobile huddle of limbs. The sound of his footsteps and the cracking of his knee-joints had given place to an absolute silence. He drew back his teeth and straightened himself a little. Then he turned the boy over with his foot. This roused Steerpike from his faintness and he raised himself weakly on one elbow.

‘Where am I?’ he said in a whisper. ‘Where am I?’

‘One of Swelter’s little rats’, thought Flay to himself, taking no notice of the question. ‘One of Swelter’s, eh? One of his striped rats.’ ‘Get up,’ said Mr Flay aloud. ‘What you doing here?’ and he put the candle close to the boy’s face.

‘I don’t know where I am’, said young Steerpike. ‘I’m lost here. Lost. Give me daylight.’

‘What you doing here, I said … what you doing here?’ said Flay. ‘I don’t want Swelter’s boys here. Curse them!’

‘I don’t want to be here. Give me daylight and I’ll go away. Far away.’

‘Away? Where?’

Steerpike had recovered control of his mind, although he still felt hot and desperately tired. He had noticed the sneer in Mr Flay’s voice as he had said ‘I don’t want Swelter’s boys here,’ and so, at Mr Flay’s question ‘Away where?’ Steerpike answered quickly, ‘Oh anywhere, anywhere from that dreadful Mr Swelter.’

Flay peered at him for a moment or two, opening his mouth several times to speak, only to close it again.

‘New?’ said Flay looking expressionlessly through the boy.

‘Me?’ said young Steerpike.

‘You,’ said Flay, still looking clean through the top of the boy’s head. ‘New?’

‘Seventeen years old, sir,’ said young Steerpike, ‘but new to that kitchen.’

‘When?’ said Flay, who left out most of every sentence.

Steerpike, who seemed able to interpret this sort of shorthand talk, answered.

‘Last month. I want to leave that dreadful Swelter,’ he added, replaying his only possible card and glancing up at the candlelit head.

‘Lost, were you?’ said Flay after a pause, but with perhaps less darkness in his tone. ‘Lost in the Stone Lanes, were you? One of Swelter’s little rats, lost in the Stone Lanes, eh?’ and Mr Flay raised his gaunt shoulders again.

‘Swelter fell like a log,’ said Steerpike.

‘Quite right,’ said Flay, ‘doing honours. What have you done?’

‘Done, sir?’ said Steerpike, ‘when?’

‘What Happiness?’ said Flay, looking like a death’s-head. The candle was beginning to fail. ‘How much Happiness?’

‘I haven’t any happiness,’ said Steerpike.

‘What! no Great Happiness? Rebellion. Is it rebellion?’

‘No, except against Mr Swelter.’

‘Swelter! Swelter! Leave his name in its fat and grease. Don’t talk of that name in the Stone Lanes. Swelter, always Swelter! Hold your tongue. Take this candle. Lead the way, put it in the niche. Rebellion is it? Lead the way, left, left, right, keep to the left, now right … I’ll teach you to be unhappy when a Groan is born … keep on … straight on …’

Young Steerpike obeyed these instructions from the shadows behind him.

‘A Groan is born’, said Steerpike with an inflection of voice which might be interpreted as a question or a statement.

‘Born,’ said Flay. ‘And you mope in the Lanes. With me, Swelter’s boy. Show you what it means. A male Groan. New, eh? Seventeen? Ugh! Never understand. Never. Turn right and left again – again … through the arch. Ugh! A new body under the old stones – one of Swelter’s, too … don’t like him, eh?’

‘No, sir.’

‘H’m,’ said Flay. ‘Wait here.’

Steerpike waited as he was told and Mr Flay, drawing a bunch of keys from his pocket and selecting one with great care as though he were dealing with objects of rarity inserted it into the lock of an invisible door, for the blackness was profound. Steerpike heard the iron grinding in the lock.

‘Here!’ said Flay out of the darkness. ‘Where’s that Swelter boy? Come here.’

Steerpike moved forward towards the voice, feeling with his hands along the wall of a low arch. Suddenly he found himself next to the dank smelling garments of Mr Flay and he put forward his hand and held Lord Groan’s